


that original lifeline

by florenceandthemachine



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Guardian Angel Buck, Guardian Angels, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Protective Evan "Buck" Buckley, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 10:33:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25469344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florenceandthemachine/pseuds/florenceandthemachine
Summary: “I’m Buck.”Holy fuck.“I’m… your guardian angel, I guess? Whatever, point is, I’m starting to get really pissed off on how determined you apparently are to die.”--Eddie has a guardian angel. Buck just wants a break.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 102
Kudos: 430





	1. your pain is a tribute

**Author's Note:**

> me: opens prompts on Tumblr 
> 
> also me: immediately ignores them all and posts this instead
> 
> tags will be updated as we go. xoxo

When Eddie was two—maybe three?—years old, he almost fell down the stairs at his abuela’s house. It was his first real memory, and all in all, it was a pretty boring one. 

Someone was celebrating a birthday, and he had been given a small slice of cake and a party hat. That had been all little Eddie had needed to have the absolute time of his life. 

The memory gets a little fuzzy the more he tries to look back at it—abuela definitely childproofed her home when Eddie came along, and honestly, how did he get close enough to a staircase to nearly topple down it without anyone seeing? Whatever. None of those things mattered.

What Eddie remembered was the fact that he almost fell down the stairs. Specifically, that he _almost_ fell down the stairs. It should have happened, honestly; he was a top heavy little toddler with a head the size of a cantaloupe and the motor skills of a drunken forest animal. 

The point of it all was that he almost fell down the stairs, because as soon as he dropped from the first step, there were warm hands around his middle, catching him in midair, turning him upside down for only a moment before he was set back on his feet, eye to chin with someone he had never seen before.

Sandy hair, light skin, pink lips, blue eyes.

A bright smile—one that Eddie returned—spread over his face as he leaned in, ruffling Eddie’s dark hair.

And then he was gone. 

(Eddie didn’t understand where he had gone, all he knew was that the man could lift Eddie like a sack of potatoes and spin him around in the air, but he didn’t quite have the verbal skills to express that quite yet. As it was, his repeated cry of _again, again!_ went unanswered.)

-

When Eddie is in second grade, he falls off the top of the jungle gym when Pepa calls his name.

What should have been a short fall somehow stretched on into eternities for Eddie, not because of the adrenaline, or because he was scared (he was in second grade now, he didn’t get scared), but because suddenly he wasn’t alone.

There’s a man beneath the playground with him.

The man’s hand is warm against the base of Eddie’s neck, pushing him out so, so minutely, so Eddie doesn’t fall onto his neck. His face is barely familiar, lips pursed in a thin line as he hovers over Eddie, wincing in sympathy as time speeds up again his body thunks against the gravel, flat on his back.

He gets the wind knocked out of him, but it’s better than a broken neck, or so Pepa shouts at him when she finally makes it up to the jungle gym; more concerning for Eddie is the fact that the man disappeared almost as soon as Eddie took his eyes off of him.

When he gets home, he tells his parents all about it. His parents make a big deal of thanking the space next to Eddie, who only wrinkles his brow in confusion. 

Sophia calls him crazy. 

Eddie is only 80% sure that they’re wrong. 

-

When Eddie is twelve, his imaginary friend pulls him up from the bottom of the swimming hole behind his parents house. Eddie decides to keep it to himself, because for the first time in his life he’s old enough to understand that none of this made any sense.

Maybe Sophia was right. Maybe he was crazy.

His imaginary friend gives him a look that makes his heart sink through the floor—how could your own imagination make you feel so guilty?—and he uses that to justify keeping this one little secret. 

Eddie is ten now. Double digits. Too old to be talking about imaginary friends. 

Besides, he wasn’t supposed to be swimming anyway. 

-

Eddie sees his imaginary friend twice in his junior year. 

He’s barely sixteen and he’s so drunk that he can’t tell what is real and what isn’t, barely able to breathe much less identify a familiar face. The only thing he is aware of are hands, burning hot, at the base of his neck and the small of his back, pushing him to lean over the toilet. He feels miserable—drinking for the wrong reasons, around the wrong people, people who didn’t care if he choked on his own vomit. It was such a contrast to feeling so cared for in that moment, Eddie probably would have had to catch his breath if he could just remember how to inhale in the first place.

He should have known he wouldn’t be alone. It didn’t matter how tightly his eyes were shut—he would know the feel of those hands anywhere.

The second time is barely a week later, and his dreams one night involve sandy hair between his fingers and pink lips against his own and when Eddie wakes up, he keeps his eyes closed, chasing the feeling of burning hands across his skin until his subconscious fades.

He’s content to chalk it up to hormones.

-

Eddie doesn’t see his... visitor (he wasn’t a kid any more, and even thinking the phrase ‘imaginary friend’ just felt weird) at all until he signs up for the army, and suddenly, it’s like he was never alone. 

He goes on a run with his platoon, and somewhere between the fourth and sixth mile, there’s another body running alongside him. 

He spends some time in the range, and as soon as the stall next to him is free, there’s a body dressed in civvies occupying the space. Eddie doesn’t understand why no one else takes the open stall.

He’s in the gym, and the other man is there too, delivering what would be some truly impressive looking punches to one of the hanging bags, except the bag wasn’t moving at all. Eddie tosses him a weight, once—he had been half expecting it to clatter to the ground, but to his surprise (or maybe dismay?) it’s caught, set down on the floor easily. Eddie has to avert his gaze to avoid a severely unimpressed look.

It would almost be like having another teammate, if he had a teammate no one else could see. 

As much as Eddie hates to admit it, he can kind of understand why he isn’t alone anymore. The Army is a dangerous place, by design, so it makes sense (in some sort of absolutely twisted way) that this being, this harbinger, isn’t leaving him alone. After all, it had showed up at the closest-to-death moments Eddie had had up until this point, why stop now?

At the very least, the desert is hot—hot enough that he doesn’t notice half the times he bumps shoulders with the entity. 

Some days are good. 

Sometimes, when they’re alone, Eddie tries to talk to him. It never works. Most of the time, he gets ignored, but sometimes—and these are the moments where Eddie can feel his heart jump—he could swear he makes the other man smile, recounting some stupid story from his childhood. Sometimes, he swears he can make the man laugh. 

Some days are... not so good. 

Because this man is there, sitting just behind the laptop as Eddie tries to video chat with Shannon and Chris, he’s there, when Eddie tries to tell them they he misses them, he’s there, offering nothing but a sad look when he and Shannon dissolve into another shouting match—only now, it’s from thousands of miles away, and they have to account for a six second delay before they can continue arguing. 

It’s infuriating. Even the moments he should have to himself, the rare moments of peace, where he can be with his family, feel robbed from him. 

When Eddie’s helicopter goes down, he looks to his left, and sure enough, there’s a sandy haired body in the jump seat next to him. He tries to say something, he really does; to beg for the other being to leave him, to never come back. He wouldn’t wish whatever was about to happen on his worst enemy, but when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out, and—

He doesn’t say anything.

He feels a hand wrap around his as the chopper tilts, nose down, and squeezes for all he’s worth. Everything goes dark, and the rest of the night is spent drifting in and out of consciousness as someone calls his name.

He gets an award. He hates the award. All he wants to do is scream and shout and beg anyone with two working ears to hear him when he says that he doesn’t deserve it—that he wasn’t the one who pulled all those men to safety—but he knows that kind of talk would land him in a straight jacket and a discharge.

Shannon leaves, and Eddie cries when he’s alone, because he can’t cry in front of Christopher. He can’t be that selfish, not when his kid needs the only parent he has left. Eddie knows that Chris got the short end of the stick here, knows that it isn’t fair that Chris got stuck with the lesser parent, and he’s terrified that if he opens his mouth he’ll admit that he’s relieved. 

So he doesn’t say anything.

He’s getting really good at that.

-

When Eddie joins the 118, he figures that he might finally be moving on past his ghost. 

And for a while, he’s right. 

(There’s a moment early on where Eddie could swear he sees him—burning brighter than the sun, surrounded by stars and planets, but then the LSD in the brownie he ate wears off.)

Eddie can’t explain why, but the sudden absence of blond hair leaves him feeling a little... lonely, at first. His new team is great, don’t get him wrong—Chim and Hen are warm to welcome him, Bobby seems... a little strict, but fair over all, and Bosko could kick his ass any day of the week, but in a good way. Eddie knows they all have his back, he knows that they would all put their lives in his hands and vice versa, but it’s not quite the same.

Sometimes, he’ll catch himself looking around, hoping to see a familiar pair of blue eyes staring back at him, but those days start to lessen.

Something settles within him, the more time he spends in Los Angeles. He settles in at work. Chris settles in at school. Carla settles into their lives—a complete godsend, courtesy of Hen, who had met her years ago in the adoption scene—and things are good. 

California has earthquakes, and while Eddie is unsettled by the ground moving beneath him (he prefers his apocalypse to come in the form of a funnel cloud, thank you very much) Eddie adjusts his tactics, puts some of his rappelling skills to good use to save a few people from a highrise. 

Chris gets into a great school, and he won’t pretend that it didn’t hurt to reach a disconnect message when he tried Shannon’s cell, but he gets in none the less and Eddie can’t dwell on it. 

Christmas comes and goes—and there may not be snow, but he still insists on covering their little house with lights and bringing Chris to see Santa (and, after some spiked eggnog, he even gets the 118 to join them in a round of Christmas carols.)

The longer he spends in the city, the more sure he is that he had just… imagined the man with the blue eyes, maybe pushed out of his mind out of some need for family, or some need for belonging, and as more time goes by, he’s not thinking about the man at all. 

He has a great job, he has Chris, he has his friends. He actually has friends. He, adult Eddie, has friends! 

Everything is perfect (or, as close to perfect as he thinks he deserves) until it isn’t.

-

They’re on their way to what Eddie hopes is the last call of a twelve hour shift, piled back into the truck, when suddenly the seat next to him is occupied. Eddie’s shocked, literally—the expression on his face must mirror that of his new companion, because after nearly a year on his own, Eddie wasn’t sure he was going to see him again. Turns out, being a firefighter wasn’t nearly as dangerous as… well, the rest of his life. 

Which, wait. His visitor usually showed up when Eddie’s life was in danger. 

He looked back just in time to see a look of pure fury cross the other males face, and then—

—and then he was flying, the entire truck launched into the air.

Eddie doesn’t know what happens next. He doesn’t know if time slows down or speeds up, he doesn’t know if he feels the lick of flames at his shirt or a burning hot hand on his chest. He’s dizzy, incredibly dizzy, and he thinks for a moment as his head bounces against the pavement, that he might get lucky and just get knocked the fuck out. 

He doesn’t get knocked the fuck out. What he does get is a kick to his side, startling him so badly that he flails his entire body screaming in protest.

(Eddie’s actually screaming, too, but doesn’t realize it until he has to inhale.)

He feels another kick to his side and his eyes struggle to focus, shifting immediately into Army mode, doing a quick systems check—two arms, two legs, a torso, a head. He feels another shove and looks down, the entirety of the firetruck barely an inch from crushing his leg from the knee down. 

Eddie yelps and scoots his legs free from the danger zone, the truck slamming into the ground as soon as his legs were clear… well, no, it was more like the truck was dropped. Because Eddie’s guest had been holding the truck up with one hand, swatting at Eddie with the other until he could pull himself free, body burning brighter than the flames behind him, looking too much like something otherworldly, something terrifying, something—

Eddie finally passes out.

He comes to when he’s wheeled into the emergency room, listening idly as Chim tells him what happened, slowly, like he didn’t believe it himself. 

“The bomber just… gave up. He dropped the switch like he had been burned—“ Eddie almost swallowed his tongue. “—and then he gave up, put his hands up, started crying, basically begged to be taken away. Bosko looked like she wanted to beat the shit out of him, and I almost wish she would have. It would have made more sense than whatever actually happened.”

Eddie almost wished he could have remained conscious to see it.

He dictates instructions to Chim as he’s moved into an actual hospital bed, which is a little ridiculous because he can walk thank you very much, but the doctors look even less interested in his complaining than Chim does—and not for the first time, he’s incredibly thankful for the network that he’s built around him. Carla brings Chris over to Abuela’s for the night, with strict instruction not to turn on the news—Eddie’s only being held overnight for observation, and as much as he hates lying to Chris, the stress of a hospital visit wouldn’t do anyone any good.

He’s wheeled into his own room, the nurse smiling at him in that sympathetic way Eddie can’t stand, telling him that once the doctor has a minute, he can prescribe some painkillers. 

Eddie doesn’t care. 

He doesn’t care because for the first time in months, he feels truly alone again; the reintroduction of the phantom in the back of his brain had undone all the tentative progress Eddie had thought he made, one bomb had undone what felt like eons of growth and independence, and now he was alone, again, in a small white room, with nothing but the sound of the clock on the wall to keep him company.

(Okay, maybe he was being a little dramatic.)

He’s halfway through a rigorous mental debate, deciding whether or not he should call up the nurse to see if his prescriptions have come through yet when a weight pushes down at the end of his bed. 

Of fucking course. 

“Is this the part where I finally get some answers?” Eddie asks, voice rough and broken, finally dragging himself back into a sitting position. His visitor is back, sitting cross legged, face a mixture of frustrated and patronizing.

Honestly, he could get in line. Eddie had been frustrated about this since he was sixteen, he earned the right to be a little pissy. “Because I swear to god, I’m about ten seconds away from pushing the call button and asking for some antipsychotics.”

Eddie doesn’t expect a response, he really doesn’t, and he’s not totally serious about losing his mind, but he needs something—some sign, some proof that he’s not a complete nut job, and he’s a second away from seeing if he can strangle the being at the foot of his bed—

“I’m Buck.” 

Holy fuck.

“I’m… your guardian angel, I guess? Whatever, point is, I’m starting to get really pissed off on how determined you apparently are to die.”


	2. you don't have to be a ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I just don’t get it, Buck. What makes me so special that I get the guardian?”  
> “Eddie, you’re the first human that's ever been able to see me, ever. You may not think it’s a lot, but… well, I think you’re pretty special.”
> 
> \--
> 
> In which Buck doesn't know how to leave Eddie alone, and Eddie doesn't know if he wants him to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> knowing what I'm doing is against my religion  
> all my brain cells and also my love belong to cailee for looking this chapter over  
> xoxo

“So, how do I know I’m not hallucinating?”

Half a week after being blown up in his own fire truck, nearing the end of his mandated ‘vacation’, and Eddie had just wrapped up one of the better weekends of his entire life. Yes, he was aware of the irony, but any weekend where he got to spend the entire weekend with Chris was a plus in his book. Legos, video games, breakfast food for all three meals, it was literally the kind of weekend that he had absolutely dreamed of when he became a father.

Or, at least, when he resumed being a father after running away to Afghanistan, but that was a whole other can of works that he was ~~bottling up~~ processing in a completely healthy way. 

After, though.

After, Eddie had made it all of one day with Chris being in school before he had completely lost his mind. Something about being cooped up in home, speaking to a being that only he could see, without even a hint of human interaction, just didn’t sit right with him.

(Of course, that might have been because the most interaction he had with his team was the occasional text from Hen, but he could work through that hurt later.)

“You really think you’re hallucinating?” Buck’s smile was infectious, more teasing than Eddie would have initially liked, but it was becoming harder and harder to think of Buck as a nuisance instead of a guest. Even now, perched outside of some little pretentious health shop in the heart of LA, Eddie felt more at home with Buck than he had with a stranger before in his life. 

Well... Buck wasn’t exactly a stranger, Eddie had to remind himself. After all, they had known one another for most of Eddie’s life.

“Alright, I’ll tell you what. This morning, while Chris was getting, he put two Spider-Man comics into his backpack.”

“That doesn’t prove anything. The kid loves Spider-Man.”

“And an Aquaman comic.”

“Okay, no. No son of mine would betray Marvel for DC.” 

Buck smirked, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know, man. If I’m right, then not only are you stuck with a very much not hallucination, but your son is a traitor.”

Eddie laughed, readjusting the earbud in his ear, nails drumming a pattern out on the back of his phone. He had realized, quickly, that when they were out in public, all he had needed was an earbud in one ear and his phone out—that was all he needed to make the change from ‘crazy person talking to an invisible man’ to ‘another asshole in Los Angeles on his Bluetooth’.

He could deal with that—it was always better to be the asshole than to be the crazy person, even though Los Angeles was filled with both. Buck, to his credit, was being incredibly patient with Eddie’s quirks, seemingly realizing that most of them came from Buck’s presence in the first place; not to mention his inability to leave Eddie, for lack of a better term, the fuck alone.

(Seriously. Eddie had come out of the shower that morning to find Buck sitting on the bathroom counter. The noise he made was decidedly _not_ manly.)

“Look, I’m not saying that I don’t believe you—“

“Okay, sure, lie to the angel, I’m sure that’s going to work out well for you.”

“—anyway, it’s just... why me? Out of everyone on this planet, why am I one of the lucky few that wound up with a... with a Buck?” Eddie finished, easily trampling over Buck’s objections, smiling as Buck knocked their ankles together beneath the table. 

“Wish I could tell you, Eds.” Buck started, shrugging. “You’re my third or fourth human, all I know is that I get the assignment, I come, I go. I’m like a stray cat.”

Eddie actually snorted, swallowing another mouthful of lukewarm, carrot and spinach and mango concoction. “You’re a stray cat that I can only see, that literally lifted a fire truck off of the lower half of my body.”

Buck, at least, had the decency to look chagrined. “I’m... a very strong stray cat?”

Eddie would not give in and bang his head against the stupid little juice bar table. He would _not._

“I’m serious, Eddie. The only information I get is that you’re my charge, and I’m your angel,” no, Eddie certainly did not enjoy the way he felt, feeling like he was someone’s anything, “and after that fire truck incident, I’m not sure if the universe is testing you, or if it’s testing me, but either way, you shouldn’t be bearing the brunt of all this.”

Eddie frowned, tapping their ankles together once again, shaking his head. “Buck, if I remember correctly, you’ve been the one saving me, so run that up the flagpole.”

Smiling again, Buck nodded, pushing a hand through his hair. “Well, I’ll just tell Athena that, I’m sure she’ll love it.”

“Athena?”

“Oh yeah! She’s kind of like, my boss, you’d love her! She’s the reason I’m still hanging around here, she thinks something big is coming.” Buck said, lighting up, even as Eddie choked on his sludge. 

“Your boss.”

“Yeah!”

“Heaven... has a hierarchy.”

“Oh, god no.” Buck said with a laugh, shifting in his seat, leaning closer in toward Eddie—like anyone else would hear him. “You know, I’ve never told a mortal this before. Hell, I’ve never even appeared to a mortal before.” he started, and Eddie found himself leaning in closer, mirroring Buck’s motions easily. 

“Where I’m from, it’s not all fluffy clouds and harps and halos and shit like everyone thinks. Athena is like your captain—she gives us our assignments, she helps the guardians grow, she keeps us out of trouble. Us guardians, we’re… well, we’re souls that had our time on earth cut short. So, we spend our time with others, we get to see the world, we get to... well, we get to help the people who really deserve help.” Buck says with a grin, and Eddie feels his cheeks heating up as Buck’s leg rests against his, a dull, warm weight, pressed through the fabric of his jeans.

“Something big, huh? I just don’t get it, Buck. I’ve been around people that are in more dangerous situations than I am, every day. What makes me so special that I get the extraterrestrial guardian?”

Buck laughed, the sound catching Eddie off guard so badly that he didn’t even have time to hide his smile. “Well, ignoring the fact that you just called me an alien…”

“Okay, fair.”

“Eddie, you’re the first human that's ever been able to see me, ever. You may not think it’s a lot, but… well, I think you’re pretty special.”

And, well. Eddie couldn’t give a response to that if he wanted to, cheeks an embarrassing shade of pink. Thankfully, Buck seemed to take the cue to move on, knocking their ankles together easily as he stood up from his chair. 

“Now, come on. Chris is off of school in about twenty minutes, what say you go surprise him?”

-

After being with the 118 for almost a year, taking a week off of work was straight up weird. Somehow, though, going back to work was actually weirder.

It was easy enough for Eddie to sink back into his regular habits—teasing Chim, buddying up to Hen, causing Bobby a few more grey hairs, but now it felt like everything had been moved a half an inch to the left. He teased Bosko, and he was looking over her shoulder to see if Buck got the joke. Kind asked about Chris, and he shared a fond look with Buck before he beamed at him and went on about his latest accomplishments. He spent some time in the gym, and he couldn’t help the pleased look on his face when he caught Buck staring at him. 

The siren rang. Eddie geared up. They pulled out. Buck, inexplicably, rode shotgun, watching Eddie and watching anything but, and Eddie felt happy, happier than he could remember being in a long, long time.

Six hours and four calls into his first shift back with the 118, and he felt alive again.

(The last call they had received was the ever-classic cat in a tree. Eddie had drawn the short stick and got hoisted up to retrieve the tabby, and Buck had sat on the rung right below him, making kissy noises at the cat and cooing at Eddie. Eddie could still feel his cheeks burning.)

He felt alive—even if he could feel Hen staring at him once in a while, painfully perceptive as always. 

“So, Eddie, you have a good week off?”

Eddie sighed, knowing full well that Hen wasn’t just asking about his week off, but he knew well enough to play along. “I did, Hen, thanks. Got to spend some time with Chris, got to spend some time around the house, got to get some sun, not that any of that is why you’re asking.”

“What? I have a vested interest in your wellbeing, Edmundo Diaz, that’s what friends are for.” She said, raising a brow as he flopped down on the couch. “So that’s all? Just you and Chris hanging out? No one else?”

Eddie actually felt his heart seize in his chest, and a quick look over to Buck showed the same level of panic on his face that Eddie was feeling in the very core of his being. “Hen, what are you getting at?”

“I’m just saying…” Hen started, sitting with him on the couch, crossing her legs. “I know that look, Eddie. You haven’t looked like that since your first date with what’s her name, Ana? Chris’ teacher?”

Eddie groaned, hiding his head in his hands. “Don’t remind me.”

“Just an observation. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you met someone with all that luxurious time off.” Hen said, nudging their shoulders together, and Eddie’s head snapped back up to full attention, face bright red as he looked to Hen, and then back to Buck, who was suspiciously silent.

And hell, Eddie was a good liar, he really was, but Hen looked so sincerely happy for him, and Buck wasn’t exactly waving his arms so Eddie decided to test the waters. “I… didn’t meet anyone. Not in the way that you think, anyway. We, um. We just kind of connected at one of those shitty juice bars.” 

“Oooh, okay, what’s her name?” Hen was immediately hooked—equal parts nosy and honestly excited friend, Eddie knew, which was why it was so easy to talk to her about things like this. 

Eddie swallowed, fiddling with the hem of his teeshirt. “His name is Buck. We spent some time talking, and we just… we really clicked. He’s smart, and he’s kind of protective, and he told me he loves kids, so…”

If Hen was shocked, she didn’t show it, more than her brows raising an inch or so while she nodded her head. “Alright, Buck at the shitty juice bar. Did he give you his number?”

“No, actually, I gave him mine.” 

Hen may have been nosy, but the way her face lit up was pure excited best friend, and Eddie let himself smile back at her as she punched his shoulder. “That is what I’m talking about! Damn, Eddie, look at you, taking the first steps. I’m proud of you!”

Eddie groaned as Hen pulled him into a hug, but he took the moment to look at Buck again—still suspiciously silent, but the corners of his mouth were definitely upturned, and Eddie couldn’t help the relief that washed over his body. 

The last thing he wanted was his big fucking mouth ruining whatever tentative relationship he and Buck had built over the past few weeks.

-

“You gave me your number, huh?”

Eddie wasn’t sure what he was more thankful for—the fact that he got to have an active (dare he say fun) first day back at work, or the fact that it wound down with little incident after back to back to back calls. Well, no, right now he was thankful that he was stopped at a stop light when Buck said that so he wasn’t tempted to veer into oncoming traffic out of sheer embarrassment. “Well, it seemed like an easier, less psychotic answer than telling her that you literally lifted a firetruck off of me.”

Buck laughed and Eddie felt himself warming at the sound, turning the wheel as he took off, another comfortable silence falling between them.

“Eddie, you know I won’t be hanging around forever, right? My job is to protect you, and once the universe decides to cut you a break, I’ll… I’ll have to move on.”

Eddie felt his smile fall into something softer as Buck looked out the window, humming thoughtfully, shrugging his shoulder as he pulled into the driveway. “Yeah, I’m aware. But while you _are_ here… no reason we can’t be friendly outside a shitty juice bar, right?”

Tracking Buck’s movement as they slid out of the car, Eddie leaned back against the drivers door of his truck, once again tickled by the thought of Buck riding shotgun with him.

“Well, I… like being friendly with you too, Ed—“

“Dad!”

Eddie immediately snapped his head to the door, grinning as Chris came down the patio stairs, instantly stooping down to pull his kid into his arms, swinging Chris around in an easy hug before setting him back down on his feet. Chris started to ramble on about his day as Eddie pulled his things out from the back seat, pulling duffle bags over his shoulders and papers beneath his arms. He shared an easy smile with Buck as he straightened up, looking back down to Chris as he started to trail off.

“Dad, are you gonna introduce me to your friend?”

Eddie turned on his heel, trying to see if anyone else had come up to the front door while he was standing there, but no, it was just he and Chris, and…

…and Buck, who was now taking Chris’ hand, with a shocked smile on his face. 

His son was shaking hands with his guardian angel. His guardian angel, who no one—other than Eddie—was supposed to see.

“I’m Chris. Do you work with my dad?”

What the _fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [come scream at me on tumblr ](https://florenceandthemachine.tumblr.com)


	3. there's a hole where your heart lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“This is Diaz.”_   
>  _“Can anyone hear me? This is Eddie.”_   
>  _“I’m alive. I’m still alive down here!”_   
>  _“I’m still alive down here!”_
> 
> -
> 
> In which things get worse before they can get better. Even if they don't get better.

“Firefighter Diaz, do you copy?”

Eddie tried to smile as he grabbed the mic hanging from his shoulder, but judging by Buck’s face, it was little more than a grimace. “Five by five, Cap. Over.”

“Alright, Chimney, report?”

“So... you’re sure none of them can see you?”

While there really were no ideal times for Eddie and Buck to talk in the station, the radio check proved to be as good a moment as any—sure enough, Eddie was already tuning out the static that was Hen making fun of Chim for his coffee order (not that he blamed her). 

It felt… weird, to say the least, to be back at work less than twenty four hours after his son had lobbed the second biggest bombshell Eddie had ever had to deal with right into his lap, but after the theatrics they had gone to the night prior to try and act like everything was fine, Eddie didn’t have the energy for another weird day in him.

“Honestly, Eddie, I don’t know. You being able to see me, that’s already rare, but not impossible. But Chris seeing me? There are no records of a guardian being seen by anyone other than his or her charge—none. Honestly, the only way I can tell I’m still not here is because the rest of your team hasn’t tried to say hello.”

And thank fuck for that. Eddie had absolutely no idea how he would explain away Buck’s presence if the others started to see him, or at least, no idea how he would explain it and not wind up in a straight jacket. Like he could sense Eddie’s frustration (which, he probably could), Buck punched his shoulder lightly, smiling. 

“But they haven’t, so stop worrying, Eds. I’ll figure something out, okay?”

Eddie only let out a laugh, looking up as the siren started to wail, only barely louder than Hen and Chim’s bickering. Going for his gear, he looked up to Buck before climbing the truck, voice pitched low. “You promise?” 

“I promise.”

-

It was a missing kid.

Eddie _hated_ missing kids. 

It didn’t matter that his son was in school, it didn’t matter that the kid was three years younger than his own, it didn’t matter that he had a mother and sister all waiting for him to turn up—in the back of Eddie’s mind, right at the corner of his vision, his traitorous brain tried its very hardest to supply all the ways that Chris could go missing. 

Even when he more or less found Hayden, it was a hollow victory; Eddie couldn’t see how it was anything close to a win when the kid was still trapped in a pipe forty feet below the ground, unable to do more than move his head. It was all he could do to ignore the low level of terror that pushed through his own stomach, and how fucking helpless he felt while they had to wait—for hours, fucking _hours_ —to get a drill up and ready to go. 

He had gotten close to having to step away more than once throughout the day, and now, the night, the only thing anchoring him to the present was Buck’s hand, on his shoulder, gripping his arm, pressing against his side. Chris was right, Eddie thought, Buck would be a good firefighter—he was calm under pressure, for one, and right now he deserved all the credit for keeping Eddie’s head on straight, especially when he stepped up to take the palm mic from a mom who was pushed well beyond her breaking point.

Yeah, Eddie could relate to that. 

“Hey Hayden, my name is Eddie. I’m a firefighter, here with your mother and a whole lot of other people.” 

He felt Buck’s hand on his shoulder again, and he took a breath, steeling himself. 

“We’re all working to get you out of there, so stay calm, okay? It might get a little... noisy. Don’t be scared. We’ll be there soon.”

His smile was thin as he handed the radio mic back to Chim, swallowing heavily as he excused himself, making his way into the house easily. The mother had wasted no time in telling them to help themselves to anything that they had needed, and Eddie made a beeline into the bathroom, gripping the sink as he hunched over and tried to get a grip on his breathing. 

He _really_ hated missing kids. 

“Eddie, you’re okay.”

Buck. Of course Buck was there, hand on his back, rubbing in small circles. “Chris is okay, he’s still in school, Carla is bringing him to Abuela’s after, and you know you’re going to get bombarded with pictures.” 

He was right, of course he was right, but that didn’t make it suck any less. Eddie opened his mouth to respond before motion in the mirror caught his eye—the house was still full of cops, firefighters, and now, drill operators. Buck didn’t seem to mind, though, smiling at Eddie’s reflection anyway. 

“You want me to go check on him? It might take me a bit to track him down properly, but—“

Eddie shook his head sharply, moving to grip the hand Buck had on his forearm. God, no, he couldn’t imagine being alone right now, couldn’t imagine the idea of sending Buck away to settle his own paranoia. He would be fine. He just needed to splash some water on his face and move on. 

He did splash some water on his face, more frequently as the night dragged on. Those were the only moments that he let go of Buck’s hand, but that was a whole other story. Buck remained silent about it, after all, even if Eddie caught him smiling a few times as they watched the drill go down. He wasn’t even sure when it had started to rain—the 118 had basically been blocked off from all other calls until they could finish their day here. Eddie was getting antsy; honestly, the fact that Eddie was unwilling to let go of the hand of his guardian angel said more about his abandonment issues (after being on both sides of that story) than an hour of therapy could bring up. 

Buck’s presence was always welcome, of course, but it could only do so much to calm Eddie’s nerves. The longer the night dragged on, the more Eddie felt like he had to do something, had to step up, and Buck started looking at him like he was about to do something incredibly stupid.

Which, well...

“Cap, I’ll go in.”

“Edmundo.” He had never heard Buck use his full name before, had never heard the other sound so pleading; but while it definitely was enough to get him to pause, it would take more to get him to stop. “I was talking to him on the radio. He knows my voice. It makes sense.”

“Like fuck it does.” Buck snapped behind him, but Eddie couldn’t turn around to gauge his reaction even if he wanted to. 

“Suit me up. I’m going down.”

It was almost too easy to pretend that Buck wasn’t mad at him while he was getting ready, strapping on oxygen tanks and harnesses, was easy to pretend that the only reason Buck hadn’t smacked him upside the head was because they weren’t alone, but Eddie knew that was all it was.

Before he knew it—far too soon, honestly—he was ready to sink into the fucking earth. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t occur to Eddie that going down alone really and truly meant that he would be going down alone. He had gotten painfully used to Buck being within arms distance of him, no matter where he was, so when he poised himself over the hole, strapped to a rope as wide around as his thumb—

“I can’t go down with you, Eddie.”

—well, he at least had an excuse as to why his face fell. 

“No one can see me, but… but I still take up space. I can’t go down with you, what if there’s no room? What if I block you in, or block you from getting to the kid?” Buck sounded completely fucking wrecked, and Eddie swallowed as he looked around, painfully aware of all the eyes on him when all he wanted to do was bail out. He couldn’t do this on his own. He fucking _couldn’t_.

“Alright, Cap. Let’s go.”

He felt the winch start to wind up as Buck moved forward, and it was killing him to have to fight off any responses when Buck leaned forward and kissed his forehead, the brief contact sending a warmth through his bones that he wasn’t entirely sure was related to Buck’s angelic being.

“For good luck.”

-

Honestly, Eddie really needed to rethink what constituted ‘rock bottom’. Sure, okay, cutting his own rope had been stupid, but he hadn’t given it a second thought—if he had been pulled out, the kid would have drowned. Hell, Eddie was close to that himself, taking several hits off of the tank Bobby had given him whenever he needed a breath that didn’t taste like mud or metal.

“This is Diaz.”

Because he stayed down there, he was able pull the kid out of the pipe and at the very least, give him some freedom to take a deep breath in the tiny little aquifer that Eddie had dug into.

“Can anyone hear me? This is Eddie.”

He was absolutely clinging to that justification, too. Sure, he had no way of knowing how fast the water would rise, but the water in the pipe had surpassed where the kid was before Chim had made his appearance. Eddie cut his rope, the kid got to live. Hooray.

“I’m alive. I’m still alive down here!”

Handing the kid off to Chim had been cake. It probably didn’t hurt that when Eddie looked up through the hole, all he saw was light. Somehow, knowing that Buck was going to be pissed off at him gave Eddie hope.

“I’m still alive down here!”

And then the drill had collapsed, and any light, any hope that Eddie had, had been snuffed out just like that. 

“Anyone?”

There was nothing. No light, no sound, nothing. Eddie went from the sound of pounding rain and muffled shouts to inky blackness and the sound of his own racing heart, and he couldn’t do much more than shout, hands dug into the dirt beneath him as he started to shake.

He had gambled it all—everything he had, his life, his job, his family, and he had lost. His _family_ , fuck, how was Chris supposed to handle this so soon after Shannon’s death? How could Eddie have done this, how could he have stepped forward when he had so much of his own shit at risk, how—

“…idiotic, arrogant asshole…”

Eddie had to shy away from a sudden burst of light behind him long before he heard any words, covering his eyes with a gloved hand. 

“Buck?”

“…completely moronic, you—you cut your own fucking line, Eddie! What the fuck were you thinking, you could have been crushed—“

“ _Buck_.” 

Eddie hated how weak he sounded, but he couldn’t bring himself to particularly care—not when the result was Buck’s hands on his shoulders, the light dimming enough that Eddie could see properly. Buck was pissed, no doubt about it, but the emotions took a side step to a look of concern, of worry, and just like that Eddie was gone, voice tight as tears carved new tracks in the mud on his cheeks.

“I’m—I’m so fucking sorry, I’m so sorry I put you in this situation and—and Chris, god, I’m such a terrible father, and—“

“Woah, woah, calm down, we’re not going to go down that road right now.” 

It took some awkward repositioning on Buck’s part but they were both able to face one another, water lapping at their legs as it slowly rose. “You’re reckless, sure, but you’re not an idiot. Being stuck down here doesn’t make you stupid, as much as I hate to admit it. Now, what do we know?” Buck’s tone was bitter, but there was no mistaking the earnest truth in his voice, and Eddie felt his face crumple when Buck looked back to him.

“Well, we’re... about thirty five feet down. One primary entrance and exit point, now blocked by the drill. There’s no radio communications, no way to send a message, and if I had to guess, no way my GPS is picking up anything.” Eddie said, smacking the useless unit on his wrist. “The water is rising, slower than it was before now that the pipe is mostly flooded, but it’s still rising, and I.... I really hope you have some magic up your sleeve.” Eddie’s voice was mostly joking, but the look that Buck shot him quickly crushed any shadow of humor he was reaching for. 

“I mean, the fire truck was easy. It’s a movable thing, it’s not fixed, it’s small in the grand scheme of things, but this... Eddie, even if I could move enough earth to get you out of here, I’d be just as likely to crush you. There has to be another way out.” Buck said, his hand easily bringing Eddie in closer, tendrils of warmth creeping under his wetsuit.

There wasn’t, and every soldiers sense in Eddie’s body was urging him to scream that truth at the top of his lungs until Buck understood it, but they had come too far for him to break down now. 

Well, to break down again. 

“Why didn’t you stop me?” Eddie asked after a long moment, face buried in Buck’s shoulder, Buck’s returning sigh more of an attempt at some levity than anything else. 

“Because you’re an asshole with free will, and I can’t stop that. Your specific blend free will is just a little more self sacrificing than others.”

Eddie gave a short laugh, the sound weak and mostly humorless, allowing himself to settle into a moment of silence.

It was easy enough to be quiet when he wasn’t alone with the sound of his own breathing—Buck was still holding him close, his body alight, and Eddie let his breathing time to the pulses radiating off of Buck’s taller frame. The light seemed to dance along the walls of the cave, bouncing and refracting off the water, sinking beneath the murky depths. Buck’s focus seemed to stray to the water as Eddie felt his mind wander, but it was different now—the panic of the moment had given way to a heavy fog, starting to dull just the edge of his senses.

Honestly, the moment was kind of... peaceful.

It might even have been pretty, Eddie thought, his brain becoming a little more addled as he burned through the pocket of oxygen they had in their hidey hole. 

Maybe this wouldn’t be a bad way to die after all. As long as he suffocated before he drowned, anyway.

“Buck, I need you to listen for a second.”

His words were slow, spoken between splashes of nasty water as he turned to look at Buck, who was still intently focused on the water, which was easily lapping at their shoulders.

“Eddie, shut up.”

“You—you have to tell Chris—“

“No.”

“Buck, I can’t, I—“

“No, Eddie, you don’t get to tap out right now. This is my job, it’s my fucking _job_ , and I am very, very good at what I do. Even if my fucking charge cut his own fucking lifeline.” Buck snapped, voice deadly calm, and Eddie flinched back. “Now, I think—I think I have a plan. How’s that tank that Bobby gave you?”

A brief glance at his wrist confirmed what he already knew. “It’s yellow. Two minutes, tops.”

“That’s all I need. Come on, put the mouthpiece in. Close your eyes until I let you go, then we’re gonna have to swim for it, okay?”

“Buck…”

“Now, Edmundo.”

If Eddie had the energy, he might have felt afraid in the moment, but when he looked back at Buck all he saw was angel—in the semi-sacreligious, biblical sense. The glow under his skin, which had been growing all evening, was almost blinding now, the very air cracking around him. His eyes were alight like coals and his skin seemed to match the temperature as he grabbed Eddie, arms around his waist. Eddie hardly had the time to put his mouthpiece in before Buck slid them under the water, and then they were off.

The deeper they went, the more Eddie found himself wishing he had suffocated—especially if drowning was the only other option. He could feel everything, every rock scraping against his suit, every tear at his harness, and the pressure, fuck, the pressure, he couldn’t tell if his ears had popped or if the drums just burst entirely. He kept his eyes shut, as he promised, but by that point Buck was so bright that his flimsy eyelids couldn’t keep the light out, and it was all he could do to keep his breathing steady.

If he had dared to peek, he probably would have seen the indicator on his wrist start to blink red, but it wasn’t like that mattered. The air in his mouth had gone stale as soon as Buck let him go, eyes snapping open, trying to tell which way was up as he started to kick wildly. He made quick work of everything weighing him down—the harness, the helmet, the tank, the air long since bad anyway. 

He could only barely register Buck’s light in the murky water, legs moving sluggishly beneath him, a stream of frustrated bubbles leaving his lips. His legs were starting to give out, each kick toward the surface weaker than the last, darkness creeping in around the edges of his vision even with the lake being lit up like a beacon. 

Suddenly, Eddie was eleven again, and Buck was pulling him out of the swimming hole behind his parents house—only now, he wasn’t sure if he could make it, wasn’t sure if he would be able to surface before the darkness ripped his vision away.

He choked out another mouthful of bubbles as the water around him pulsed with light, and with a sharp tug around his waist he was suddenly launched forward, the cold water slicing across his cheeks like liquid daggers. The closest thing he could compare it to was being thrown from the truck, after the bomb had gone off—one moment, he was choking on his own exhalation, the next, he was hitting the shore, hard, sputtering and coughing even as he continued to drag himself away from the water.

Somehow, the worst part of all of this was the fucking rain—relentlessly pounding down on him, drowning out the sound of his own ragged breathing, his footsteps, he couldn’t even hear Buck stumble behind him anymore. His attempts at encouragement had just turned into ragged sounds, barely there words as he struggled to suck in another breath, blindly staggering away from the water and toward the steady pulse of red lights.

Back toward home. 

Eddie could hardly believe it. 

He wasn’t sure if it was the last kick of adrenaline or the afterglow of Buck’s warmth holding him up, but he started moving faster, feet scrabbling for purchase on the slick terrain as he stumbled. His breathing had started to become ragged as he dragged himself along, but he still felt his heart start to pound as he heard voices—Bobby’s voice, the familiar tone of orders being barked out, vaguely hearing his own name over the roar of the rain.

They hadn’t given up on him. 

He heard more than he felt the moment his legs finally gave out, stumbling face first into the huddle of first responders, the burning feel to his skin finally ebbing into something more pleasant, more bearable, even as the rain started to sink into his bones. He wasn’t in great shape, to say the least; the only reason he remained upright for even a moment was because of the quick thinking of his teammates, reaching out for him as he stumbled.

“I’m—I’m pretty cold.” He got out as he went down, the sudden loss of warmth from Buck’s hands forcing him to focus on the present, even as the touch lingered, skin warm where Buck had pushed him forward. 

Things moved pretty quickly after that. He was half pulled, half walked into the nearest rig, foil blankets tight around his shoulders as an oxygen mask was forced over his face and a blood pressure cuff started to cut off circulation to his arm. 

He couldn’t tell where Buck was anymore, and how was that even possible? Buck had lit up the tiny-ass cave they were stuck in like a beacon, he had made the entire lake glow like a lighthouse, he had burned like—

Like a flame, Eddie realized, burning itself out. 

No sooner did he make that connection did his entire body go cold, the lingering warmth from Buck’s touch snuffed out like a candle, and Eddie felt a noise he couldn’t own up to rip itself free from his throat as he started to shiver. 

Fuck.

“Hen, he’s—he’s gone, fuck, I have to—“

“Eddie, stop, we got the kid, he’s okay, you—Eddie!”

His entire body was shaking as he tossed his mask aside and tore himself from her grip, making it only a few steps before he fell to the ground, tears mixing with mud as he cracked his nails trying to dig. “No! No, no, I can’t leave him—I have to get him, he’s—no, fuck, _no!”_

He only vaguely registered Hen calling for help over the sound of his own crying, voice broken as he continued to wail, the noises coming from his body sounding like something ripped from the depths of hell. Suddenly multiple sets of hands were pulling him back, wrapping him in shock blankets, strapping him to lie down on what he thought was a backboard.

There was already darkness starting to creep in at the edges of his vision, even as his eyes spun wildly in his skull, taking in Bosko, Hen, Chim, Bobby, Kinard...

No sandy hair. No pink lips. No blue eyes.

It wasn’t the first time he couldn’t see Buck, but this was different. He could still feel him, could still _feel_ his presence, the good that he put into the world, and now…

He was gone.

 _Buck_ was gone.

And as Eddie finally gave in and passed out, blackness swirling out from the corners of his vision, he thought he would never be warm again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [come scream at me on tumblr ](https://florenceandthemachine.tumblr.com)


	4. you deserve what you are given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all intents and purposes, Eddie Diaz felt like a dead man walking. 
> 
> It shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone that he wasn’t in a great place. But what the hell else was he supposed to do, go to therapy?
> 
> _“Hi, I’m Eddie, I’m sad because my guardian angel died. I haven’t been able to sleep in weeks without nightmares about being buried alive. Why yes, I am still on active duty as a firefighter.”_
> 
> Yeah, that was going to go over so well.
> 
> -  
> in which Eddie has a chance at some closure—but not in the way you might think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note the update to the chapter count—it didn't feel right wrapping up everything in one last chapter. the beautiful, wonderful [cailee](http://buckleydiazs.tumblr.com) inspired a totally new ending with her work and you should read everything she’s ever written, honestly. 
> 
> that all said and done, I won't keep you waiting too long. the last chapter will be up tomorrow, and I love all of you forever and ever.

For all intents and purposes, Eddie Diaz felt like a dead man walking. 

He had been swallowed up by the Earth and spit back out, in once piece, but that didn’t mean that he was whole. 

For the first month, he seemed to fluctuate wildly between the first three stages of grief, but honestly, he attributed a good portion of that to the mandatory leave of absence he had been given from the 118. He had already lost an eternal being, so sure, absolutely, losing the one routine he had going for him was great!

As ashamed as he was to admit it, his denial spiked the highest whenever he was around Christopher. His son was so good, so fucking kind, and sweet, and it just didn’t feel fair for Eddie to do anything other than smile with him and support him in any way that he could. He had to admit, that was the only shred of silver lining he could see in his mandatory leave—he got to wake up with Chris every morning, he got to take him to school and pick him up after, and he got to give Carla a very, very well deserved vacation. 

If he spent the hours that Chris was out of the house begging to a God that he figured hated him, well, that was his own business. 

When he did get angry, Eddie made damn sure to do it on his own time, in his own house, in his own state of being—he would sooner jump back under an exploding fire truck than allow any of his anger leak through to Chris, and besides, the only person that he was really angry with was himself. He still didn’t know why he had volunteered to go down in the first place—Chim would have been the much more logical choice, he was smaller, he was lighter, and he could move faster, all of that proven when Chim had successfully pulled the kid out of the muddy hole in record time. Unfortunately, there was one thing he didn’t have—the heaps of fucked up brainpower that Eddie seemed to tap into whenever he was out on a call that involved a kid. 

Somewhere around the six week mark, Eddie’s brain had finally given up on bouncing back and forth between denial, bargaining, and anger, and instead slipped right into stage four—a deep, comfortable, whole body depression—one that felt impossible to shake, one that felt like a thick, weighted blanket, wrapped around his body, layering guilt, sadness, shame….

…well. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone that he wasn’t in a great place. But what the hell else was he supposed to do, go to therapy?

_“Hi, I’m Eddie, I’m sad because my guardian angel died. I haven’t been able to sleep in weeks without nightmares about being buried alive. Why yes, I am still on active duty as a firefighter.”_

Yeah, that was going to go over so well.

One of the many fucked up surprises this newer, nihilistic state of being brought him were the rare moments when he managed to break out of the shell he used to call a personality. He would snort with a sudden spike of laughter at something a comic on television said, or feel a pulse of genuine sadness when he was reading Chris his bedtime story. The moments were few and far between, and they were never more than a few seconds long. 

So, the surge of resignation he felt when he saw red and blue lights erupt in his rearview mirror came as something of a surprise, in and of itself… and then he realized he was going ten over the limit, and resigned this entire day to another page in the Eddie Diaz book. 

It was one of his rare days off—rare, because he had been picking up every extra shift he could to help keep his mind busy—and Chris had been overjoyed at the idea of spending a day with Abuela, a rare treat for both of them once Carla entered their lives. Eddie had swung by after work, had an early dinner with his family, kissed Abuela and Pepa goodbye while dodging all of their questions about what was wrong, and why he looked so sad, and if you would just _talk to us_ , Eddito. He had ignored it all, skillfully loaded Chris into the back of his truck, pretended not to feel a little envious when his son passed out within minutes, and—

—and now he was getting pulled over for speeding.

Eddie allowed himself all of five seconds to rest his head against the steering wheel, the urge to scream only lessened by the knowledge that Chris was asleep in the back of his truck, before he pulled out his wallet and fished his license and registration out. He rolled his window down as the officer started to walk toward the truck, unable to even entertain the idea that he was going to drive away with less than a ticket for whatever it was he had done wrong.

“You can go ahead and put those away.” 

Eddie blinked in confusion as the officer approached his window, his hand hesitating awkwardly before he slowly pulled his arm back inside his truck, the cards tossed absentmindedly onto the passengers seat of the truck.

“I don’t need your license to know who you are, Edmundo. It’s good to finally meet you. I’m sorry it had to be like this, but I had to ensure we wouldn’t be interrupted.”

Typically, an announcement like that usually would have set off every siren in Eddie’s head, but he hadn’t had the energy for something like that for weeks now. Instead, he shifted in his seat, not quite leaning out the window but definitely getting a better look at the officer standing just outside his truck, the lights from her squad car still blinking in his side view mirror. 

“How do you know who I am?”

She smiled, expression sharp and calculating, and Eddie didn’t need her to take off her sunglasses to know that she was looking him over, staring right through him. He didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt desperate that she would approve of whatever it was that she saw. 

“My name is Athena.”

Suddenly, things clicked in his brain, and it wasn’t just in the sharp smile of the officer—or, not officer—standing in front of him. He was knocked back, almost violently, sitting outside of a shitty shake shack with Buck, ankles knocked together under the table, laughing about whatever.

He almost choked as a surge of emotion shot through him, rattling the very shell of his empty being, a sadness and a guilt so strong, so overwhelming, that it threatened to spill out of him in a moments notice. He gripped the steering wheel so hard he wouldn’t have been surprised if he bent it, face going through a flurry of emotions, not trusting himself to speak when he couldn’t even breathe. 

Fuck, here Eddie was supposed to be strong, for his kid, for his teammates, and four words had him blinking back tears in the drivers seat of his truck. “Athena, I—I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what he was going to do, I wouldn’t have let him, I promise, this is all my—“

“Hey, hey, stop that.” She took a small step forward as Eddie felt his jaw click shut, tucking her sunglasses into her uniform pocket. “I don’t blame you for anything, and you shouldn’t be blaming yourself. Buck told you about our relationship with free will, right? Well, he had it, too. Everything he did was by choice. His energy was his own to give, and you can’t beat yourself up for him choosing to use it on you. He wouldn’t want that.”

Her smile had softened into something more genuine, something more understanding, and as much as Eddie wanted to let it calm him down, wanted to trust it, he… couldn’t.

Eddie felt another wave of emotion surge forward, dangerously close to the edge—anger this time, hot and sticky in the back of his throat. Here this perfect stranger was telling him what to think, what to believe, what Buck would want, and the worst part of it all was that Eddie had no reason to doubt her. All in all, he really, _really_ didn’t know Buck—not as well as he thought he did, certainly. But maybe not even at all.

No sooner did that thought enter his mind did his anger die down, leaving him feeling nauseous, guilty, and as gross as it was to admit it—a little pleased. He hadn’t felt genuine emotion in so long, he had been beginning to think he couldn’t anymore. 

Eddie let out a rattling breath as he leaned forward to rest his head on the steering wheel once again, only now, Athena looked mostly sympathetic, arms loosely at her sides, thumbs tucked into her utility belt as she waited for Eddie to get his bearings again. 

“I miss him.”

Athena let out a little laugh as she nodded her head, her smile wide again, looking at Eddie with something between fondness and exasperation. It was a look he had grown very used to, spending more time with Abuela.

“I know, Eddie. I do too.”

They shared another moment of silence while Eddie counted his breaths, interrupted only when Athena cleared her throat and looked down, kicking at the ground near Eddie’s front tire.

“I’m not going to stand here and try to placate you with promises, or niceties, because this world is already unstable enough, and I am not going to waste either of our time. I’m here to offer you a choice, Eddie. I’m here to offer you a chance of… closure, of sorts.” 

Eddie felt his pulse start to quicken as she spoke, not because of the words she said, but because Eddie could already _feel_ it—the same warmth, the energy that used to dance around Buck, was already beginning to swirl around Athena’s narrow frame, making Eddie homesick for a place he didn’t think he would ever be able to return to. 

“What, um…” He had to swallow, taking a moment to look at Chris in the rear view mirror, still conked out against his doorframe. “What exactly are you offering me?”

Athena’s jaw was squared again, slowly lifting her hand up from her belt, fingers splayed before her. If it was a little darker out—if Eddie closed his eyes—he could almost swear they were luminous.

“Buck was under my care, he was my responsibility, and that means you were too, even if it was in an indirect way. Eddie, I didn’t know what was going to happen, before or after you went down that hole, but I hope you believe me when I tell you how sorry I am that you had to go through that. No human should ever have to deal with… with a loss of that magnitude.”

And there it was, the unbreakable truth that Athena had been dancing around since she pulled him over. Loss. It was a _loss_ , Buck really was gone. Not an angel, not a guardian, not anymore. Eddie had to swallow again. 

“I can’t lessen that pain. Only time can do that, and to what extent, even I don’t know. But what I can do is take it away from you, make you forget. Your life will still be your own, but the moments where Buck shone through will be altered, so you’ll have seen the situations just like any other human would have.”

Eddie took in a deep breath, letting it out between loose lips, taking in a few more before he could speak. “So it’ll be like I never saw him in the first place. Like I never knew what was protecting me.”

Athena nodded her head, moving her fingers slowly, focusing on them as much as she was on him. “It’s important to me that you understand I won’t force you to do anything here—this is all your choice. And I’m sorry to say it’s a choice you have to make relatively quickly, I’m already breaking enough protocols being here right now.”

Eddie laughed—he couldn’t help himself, the sound pulled from his throat without him expecting it. “So I guess you’re where Buck got his strict adherence to the rules, huh?”

Athena clicked her tongue and leaned in to smack his arm with her free hand, but the smile on her face was genuine, the touch feather light compared to what Eddie knew she could do.

“His presence has been a bright spot in your life, and I’m glad for that, but I know it can get awful dark without that light. So, it’s up to you. Do you want to keep living, having had this experience, but knowing that no one can relate to it, can help you past it now that it’s over? Or do you want to forget you ever saw his light, to be able to move forward without this darkness weighing on your heart?”

-

For the first time in months, Eddie was able to sleep through the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, you can [come scream at me on Tumblr.](https://florenceandthemachine.tumblr.com)


	5. i'm the same, i'm the same, i'm trying to change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie knew that things were going to be different the moment he slapped his alarm the next morning, because for the first time in months, he actually turned his alarm _off._ He didn’t lie in bed and ignore it, he didn’t hit snooze until he could get the energy to see the day, he turned it off, he got up, and he started to dress. He couldn’t remember the last time he had greeted a Monday on time for an early morning workout, but the few miles he was able to get in on the treadmill was nothing compared to the look of happiness on his son’s face when he got to join him and Carla for breakfast—instead of running out the door, a granola bar lodged in his mouth. He literally felt like he just woke up on the right side of the bed this morning; judging by the way that Chris lit up, and Carla rose her brows in surprise, his change in attitude was already being noticed. 
> 
> Even if Carla was good enough not to comment on it.
> 
> -
> 
> in which Eddie has a good day, has a bad day, sees a familiar face, and tries not to blow up an ambulance. not necessarily in that order.

Eddie knew that things were going to be different the moment he slapped his alarm the next morning, because for the first time in months, he actually turned his alarm _off._ He didn’t lie in bed and ignore it, he didn’t hit snooze until he could get the energy to see the day, he turned it off, he got up, and he started to dress. He couldn’t remember the last time he had greeted a Monday on time for an early morning workout, but the few miles he was able to get in on the treadmill was nothing compared to the look of happiness on his son’s face when he got to join him and Carla for breakfast—instead of running out the door, a granola bar lodged in his mouth. He literally felt like he just woke up on the right side of the bed this morning; judging by the way that Chris lit up, and Carla rose her brows in surprise, his change in attitude was already being noticed. 

Even if Carla was good enough not to comment on it. 

Honestly, Eddie didn’t know what was going on himself, but he wasn’t going to complain. A day ago, he had almost started to cry at one of those family car commercials with an old dog in it, and today, he was already back into the familiar motions of ‘being well’. 

He had been through enough therapy in his life to know the “highs and lows” mental health speech every which way, but what he hadn’t realized until this morning was that when you were low, being low becomes your new normal. Eddie had been through it before (with Shannon, with his parents, with… name a thing), and he knew it would probably come again, but that didn’t make the moments that he got to stand in the light on the other side of the tunnel any less sweet.

It felt like he was standing in the sun.

“Morning Hen! Coffee?” Eddie grinned as he took the stairs up into the loft two at a time, box of danishes in one hand, coffee holders stacked high in the other. He had literally been smiling since he parked his car outside, and was now beaming at Hen only because she was lucky enough to be the first person he got to see that day. Lucky, sure, but he still didn’t miss the way that her brows rose into her hair as she took her cup and her selection of baked goods, knowing full well that this was probably… a lot to take in from his behavior for the past many weeks. 

“You’re… cheery.” Hen commented easily, staring at Eddie like a puzzle to figure out—and while that would have made him nervous before, it was actually kind of nice now, a friend showing that she cared. 

To his credit, Eddie just shrugged, pulling off another coffee as he put the boxes down on the table, knowing full well they would be devoured before he could even look back. “What can I say? It’s a good day today, the sun is out, and I only have to be here for eight hours. Hey, where’s Chim? I got Mr. Asian James Bond an extra bear claw, since he’s been driving everyone up the wall with his whole sorority girls speech.”

Hen let the topic drop (and Eddie thanked her silently for it) as she groaned and shook her head, taking another drag from her coffee cup as, sure enough, the pastry boxes started to draw everyone in like flies. He started handing out coffees to those who’s orders he could remember, grinning as Hen launched into it. “No no, ‘Asian James Bond’ was last week, now it’s ‘Asian Sex Symbol’ to you. God, that stupid calendar, between he and Bobby I am ready to enter myself, blow them both out of the water as Miss July, and—”

“Hey, hold up, where’s Bosko?” Eddie said, cutting her off before she could pick up too much steam, staring at the last coffee in his hands as Bobby pulled his own free. 

Hen and Bobby shared a glance as Bobby cleared his throat around a mouthful of coffee, swallowing before he started to speak. “Actually, Lena’s back with the 136 for the foreseeable future. I’m happy to say that we finally have that vacancy filled.”

Eddie felt his brows launch into his hairline, only vaguely remembering that Lena was supposed to be here on a temporary basis—and he had been a complete ass to her for the past few months. Well, that was going to be a fun little addition to his long list of issues, and he winced as he made a mental note to swing by the 136 later on with another danish and an apology. Hen caught the look, her own brow tilting in return, though she was good enough to redirect her attention back up to Bobby. “So, wait, who’s going to be the newbie on the 118?”

“He is walking up the stairs right now, if you want to turn around. Just graduated out of the Academy last week. Pretty much top of his class, apparently impressed enough people that I had to fight off station 6 to get him to come here—welcome, Evan Buckley.” 

“Hey, uh, you can just call me Buck.” 

Eddie almost choked on his coffee as he heard a voice behind him, grabbing a napkin to catch a few drops as he turned, trying to repress his cough as he turned around, meeting a pair of blue eyes, staring at Eddie with an intensity that made his insides curl like he had just been sucker punched. He didn’t say anything, of course, just reached out and shook hands, introduced himself, did the whole shebang—with a smile, he might add! 

Today was a good day. It could still be a good day. It really, really had the potential to be a good day. 

-

Today was not a good day. 

Eddie wanted to work well with Buck, he really did, but every time Buck opened his mouth, all Eddie could feel was pressure, water pushing in on him at every angle, the choking taste of mud in his mouth. At this point in time, Eddie wasn’t sure what was worse—that Buck seemed to put his foot in his mouth whenever he talked to Eddie, or the fact that he didn’t seem to give a fuck where and when he was flapping his yap.

An exploding man hole cover literally knocking someone’s arm into the nearby pool? He had barely started with “Hey, you good? You must have lucked out after that firetruck and all…” before Eddie was talking over him, asking for gauze and a tourniquet to try and save some of the live tissue in the very-much-not-alive arm. 

A stab wound to the ass that resulted in the most lifelike Michelin man that Eddie had ever seen? “So, silver star, huh? You save a platoon or something?” Eddie managed to smile, jaw tight as he shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I was just in convoy.”

Even their downtime wasn’t safe—a grocery run that wound up with the entire team stacked high with grocery bags as they walked back into the station? “Hey, I saw a piece about that drill—“

“Alright, who wants lunch?” Eddie was immensely thankful for Bobby’s distraction, not bothering to hide the fact that his interruption was far from a coincidence. By now, even Hen was looking at Buck like he was a crazy person at that point—or maybe just an asshole. 

Somehow, after all of their calls, it only came to a head in the gym. Apparently, Buck had decided that the subtle approach (not that anything Buck did could be called subtle) wasn’t good enough, and for whatever reason decided that the gym was the best time to approach Eddie. 

Honestly, if Eddie wasn’t a good thirty away from the first real workout he had had in weeks, he probably would have walked away.

“Eddie, you… you know who I am, right?”

His jaw twitching in time with his punches, Eddie finally relented from the poor bag and looked at Buck directly, jaw set as he started to rewrap his hands. “And what if I didn’t? You think this would have gone over well with HR, the new guy bringing up the worst days of my life and all but asking me about a fucking guardian angel?”

“Jesus, that’s not what I—“

“I met Athena.”

Eddie could almost hear Buck’s mouth shut, the clack of his teeth somehow louder than the din of the station behind him. “I met her and she told me that she didn’t know what had happened, and then she offered to make me forget. Forget about you, about everything, because not even she knew where you had wound up.” Eddie started, rolling his wrists easily. “She apologized to me, she said she missed you, well, not that she was alone in that sense. You should probably find a way to apologize to her, too. Let her know you’re okay. Hold the bag.” Eddie’s voice was low even as his tone started to sharpen, doing his absolute best to keep his face neutral, lest he want any attention from Hen or Bobby for harassing the new guy. 

To Buck’s credit, he did as Eddie asked, holding the bag steady as Eddie started to wail on it anew, thankful that he at least had the temporary distraction of pressure against his knuckles to stop the urge to scream into the sky. 

“Athena… she really did that?” Eddie didn’t respond, just threw another punch, grunting with the exertion. Buck’s voice was low, barely louder than the sound of Eddie’s hands making contact with the bag. “Is that what you want? An apology? Because I’m not going to apologize for saving you, Eddie, I’m not going to say sorry for not leaving you in the bottom of a pit to… I’m not sorry for that. So if that’s what you’re after, I don’t know what to offer you.” 

Eddie threw a kick from his left, giving Buck plenty of time to adjust his grip before his ankle came smashing into the bag, panting as he stared Buck down, feeling the anger start to drain out of him as he breathed, shaking his head. “Buck, is that what you think this is about?”

Buck, bless him, just looked like a lost puppy when what Eddie said sunk in.

“You saved my life. I mean, you’ve always kept me safe, but back there you saved my life. You let me go home to my kid, you… I could never thank you enough for that. I’m not mad about that.” He shook his head, flexing his fingers as he took another fighting stance, his poster lower, more subdued than the all out attack he was waging before. 

“Well then what—“

“I’m not mad at you because you left.” Eddie repeated, starting another round of punches, each hit slower, shorter, but packed with more force than was strictly necessary. “I’m mad at you because you fucking—because you didn’t come back. Because you _chose_ not to come back. You went through the academy, top of the class, and that was eighteen weeks of you being here, just miles away from me in Los Angeles, and you let me think that you were dead that entire time. You were with me my whole entire life, you were a constant, and then I lost you, Buck, and I had to try and live with that. And then you show up at work today, and you’re alive, and human, and I’ve had barely eight hours to deal with all of this, after I—I fucking _mourned_ you. I mourned you, and you let me, and that—that’s why I’m mad.”

Although, the more he spoke, the more Eddie realized that he wasn’t mad, not really, not that he would own up to it that easily. He wasn’t angry, he was just… crushed. His hook got sloppy and he went wide, eyes wild, stumbling only a little before catching himself on the bag.

“Why does everyone leave me? What did I do, Buck, why didn’t you come back?”

The sudden sound of footsteps drew his eye up to the loft where the next shift was pouring in, easily exchanging pleasantries with Eddie’s team, and Eddie felt the last bit of fight drain out of him as he started to unwind his gloves. The day was done. His shift was over. And after feeling nothing but empty for weeks, Eddie had just about exhausted the entire range of his emotional capabilities in less than a day.

“Eddie, I—“

“Forget it, Buck. I’ll see you tomorrow, or whatever.” Eddie said, not even bothering to look over his shoulder as he headed back to the locker area.

-

“Fire and Rescue, hello?”

Eddie was having another… long day. Not a bad day, not necessarily, but not a… great day either. He had still managed to get up, he had still brought himself to work, he still managed an honest smile when he kissed Chris goodbye, but he found himself hesitating before he wound up walking into the 118. He didn’t know if he could handle Buck again today—thankfully, it seemed like he didn’t have to. Buck was mostly absent that morning, giving Eddie enough apologetic looks over the table to display that he got he had been an asshole the day before (or, more likely, that Hen and Chim had verbally beat that fact into him before Eddie got there).

Their morning had gone off without incident—there had only been one real call outside a few false alarms, a moron with his head literally cemented into a microwave—and to be honest, Eddie couldn’t deny the fact that he loved how easily he and Buck could work together. Well, how easy they worked together when Buck shut up for three minutes. 

Another save, an easy lunch, and Eddie’s eight hour shift looked like it would be ending easily when they got the call to head down to Torrence, walking into what felt like the worlds most mothball-scented Army Navy Surplus store.

Eddie felt his body tense up as soon as the word ‘grenade’, having to take a split second to remind himself that he was still in the States, he wasn’t in wartime, he was still safe. Because he was safe, they were okay, until Buck moved the dressings and a gold glint caught his eye. 

“None of the guys I’ve worked with were dumb enough to shoot a live round into their own leg, but I’m familiar with the ordinance.”

Eddie felt his jaw twitch again as Buck stared him down, a tic that he was sure would come to be familiar in over the next few days. Honestly, he was starting to think that Buck was just bringing all the mess with him—he had gone months without a call that threatened his life and limb, and then as soon as Buck came back into his life, there he was, with a grenade stuck inside of some old, gun collecting bastard. He could almost feel the moment where Buck opened his mouth—it was the same feeling he got whenever Buck had appeared, years and years ago, whenever something extremely stupid was about to happen. 

“I’m in.” 

Of course he was. 

For what it was worth, Buck had stellar bedside manner. It was easy for him to to make small talk with Charlie while he hung the morphine, asking about his wife, his life, and Eddie found himself a little bit reassured by how easily Buck was able to buckle down and rise to the situation. After all, Buck had been doing that for Eddie’s whole life—it would be a shame if he lost that skill when he could use it the most.

They kept their talk small and professional as Eddie worked, even though most of his work was giving short, clipped orders, like he was afraid that the grenade would be able to tell how stressed out he was and put them both out of their misery, then and there. They both let out a collective sigh of relief as the grenade plunked, solid and heavy into the bin, Buck hastily closing it like a lid would save them all if that thing were to blow up.

Eddie was just finishing up, throwing a few stitches to try and keep things together until Charlie could make it up to surgery when Buck finally found his voice.

“I was scared, Eddie.”

Eddie didn’t even bother looking up, his fingers working quickly. “I know, but we got it out, we just have to be careful not to move the box too much.”

“No. I mean, about coming back, about seeing you, I… I was scared.”

Eddie looked up as he threw another stitch, sparing a quick look to make sure that the old man was still out cold. When Buck looked up to him, Eddie rose his brows, giving him a little not of encouragement. 

“You said I’ve been with you your whole life, but… that goes both ways, Eddie. I don’t even know what happened, one minute I had hurled you out of that lake, and the next I was nothing, there was just nothing, and then…” He took a breath as he moved the dressings, letting Eddie continue his easy stitchwort. “And then I was in a loft in Los Angeles, with a drivers license in my pocket and a brochure for the LAFD Academy on a dresser. I still don’t know how I got there, but I knew it would bring me to you.”

“Here, cut here.”

Buck snipped the end of Eddie’s suture easily, passing him a tube of antibacterial gel, dolloping it along the messy wound site.

“For the first time in years, I couldn’t _feel_ you anymore. I didn’t know what you were doing, or how you were feeling, or if you were safe, and it scared me. I missed you, of course I did, but I knew that if I just went right back to you, it would be like nothing had changed, when really, everything had changed.” Eddie looked up as he covered the gel in an adhesive gauze patch, hanging another bag of fluids, eyes tracking between the steady blip of the heart monitor and the very live grenade in a bin at the end of the ambulance, while his brain tried to keep up with the live grenade that he and Buck were lobbing back and forth.

Nodding for Buck to open the back door, Eddie waited until they both had their feet on the ground to respond, rolling his neck. “Well, that’s kind of par for the course. Being scared, I mean.” he started, a small smile on his face as Buck looked back, catching his eye. Eddie shrugged, eye darting over to the rest of their team, still safely out of earshot as he nudged Buck’s shoulder, the motion easy and simple, muscle memory built up over years.

“Welcome to the human condition. It kind of sucks. You’re going to love it.”

And fuck, Buck was smiling again. Eddie would give anything to keep that look on his face, even as they handed Charlie off to the medics, even as the bomb squad guy called in the robot to… well, to do what, Eddie didn’t know. But that was the beauty of it all—he didn’t have to care anymore. All that mattered to him in that moment were his boots on his ground, the air around him, and maybe, if he played his cards right, the team he got to work with. He could feel Bobby’s eyes on him as he pulled his flac jacket off, a little slow on the uptake of whatever had happened in the ambulance.

“You know, you’re pretty badass under pressure.” Eddie said, his face curving up into the first real smile he had worn in days. Buck looked like a deer in the headlights, like Eddie must have been talking to someone, anyone else, and even Bobby cracked a grin as Eddie smacked him in the arm. “You can have my back any day.”

Buck looked, well, Eddie would have framed the look on Buck’s face if he could. It was a vision of pure joy, the simple sentence meaning more to both of them than anyone else could ever know, and Eddie had to resist the urge to pull him into a bone crushing hug as he kicked at the ground. 

“Yeah. Or, you know, you could… You could have mine.”

If Eddie smiled any wider, he felt like his face was going to crack.

They were still not great—not by a long shot—but for the first time in almost six months, Eddie finally felt something close to closure, to peace, a starting point for the two of them that would take them both who-knows-where.

“Deal.”

And then, because nothing in Eddie’s life was ever easy, the ambulance exploded. Eddie wasn’t even phased at this point in his life—any exploding vehicle was fine by him as long as he wasn’t on it.

“Are, uh, are you guys hungry? There’s a great burger place around here, they’re open for another hour or so.”

-

Hanging back as the rest of his crew packed up, Bobby pulled his phone out of his pocket as it buzzed, a small smile gracing his lips as he unlocked it. 

**New Message from A - 11:12PM**

**Well? Was I right, or was I right?**

“Cap, come on! Burgers wait for no man!”

**To A - 11:14PM**

**They’re going to be one hell of a team.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES HELLO this is the end! the end of the very first fic I've ever written without a Tumblr prompt! I know it's a little disjointed in places and I'm going to undoubtedly edit the shit out of it later on. all that said and done, I hope you've enjoyed, and I hope I've managed to earn your interest in any future writing endeavors I take on.
> 
> and of course, as always, you are welcome to [come scream at me on tumblr.](https://florenceandthemachine.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> [come scream at me on tumblr ](https://florenceandthemachine.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [that original lifeline[Chinese Translation] 已授权翻译](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27629777) by [trosa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trosa/pseuds/trosa)




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